Home working business ideas - index

Listen to the ‘doom and gloom’ media, and you could be forgiven for thinking that nobody has any money any more. It may come as a surprise therefore, to learn that according to new research published today, there are now a record 284,317 millionaires in the UK.

A useful tip has come in today for anyone who owns or is thinking of purchasing a leasehold flat (or other leasehold property for that matter) that was built in the 70’s or 80’s. Check how long the lease is for.

You may not have noticed Treasury Secretary, Danny Alexander’s, announcement that HM Revenue and Customs is to invest up to £900 million to 2014-15 to set up a new offshore avoidance team and increase prosecutions for tax avoidance. If you have offshore accounts, you need to be warned.

If you have a free Blog at the moment and feel from feedback that people would pay for your information and advice, then letter.ly offers a cheap and easy way to turn your informal blog into a paid newsletter.

UBS executive Josef Stadler, who manages investments for clients with assets of $50m+ to invest, advises that wealthy investors are now buying into physical gold as a safe haven during these troubled times.

Avril Harper, eBay Powerseller, has been offering me some eBay selling ideas - it's that time of year when I sell off my unwanted items to pay for Christmas. Avril's advice? "Try to use words that add value to your descriptions and make items sound more attractive.

It's a slow day in a little North Yorkshire town. The sun is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from down south is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a £100 in cash on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

This tip’s just come in and we’ve not yet had a chance to test it – but it sounds very promising! There’s a website, where you can share your know-how and earn money from it. Here’s what the site says, we all have areas of expertise ranging from how to remove a wine stain from a carpet to researching a family tree. Publish your tip on VideoJugPages and you share any advertising revenues from that contribution.

We talked the other week about the Paramount Studios’ theme park that is coming to Murcia in Spain. The latest set of stats from the National Institute of Statistics – showing 1,308 homes sold in a month compared to a national average of about 100 – suggests Murcia is becoming something of a bottom-fishing hotspot.

The government’s free pension tracing service, set up in 2005, has so far helped 350,000 people discover if they are eligible for a workplace pension from previous employers. The average lump sum payout has been £1,900.00

The Land Registry and the Law Society have got together to produce two new guides to help property owners protect themselves against fraud. There have been increasing numbers of fraud cases involving identity theft and forged documents. Home owners who live abroad, absent landlords and those without mortgages are often targets for fraudsters.

The government's Rent-A-Room Scheme allows you to earn up to £4,250 a year tax-free from renting a furnished room in your home. Check out www.direct.gov.uk. Property expert Jo Thornhill offers additional advice, ‘Ensure your mortgage lender has no issue or conditions regarding letting a room to a non-family member. Some mortgage agreements prevent this.’

A spoof email may include a forged email address in the ‘From’ field. Note that this field is easily altered. Many spoof emails begin with a general greeting such as Dear PayPal member. If you do not see your first and last name, be suspicious and do not click on any links or button.

We mentioned in the summer that it was a good time to look at fixed energy deal as they were going, going, soon to be gone. USwitch.com today offers a final call along with a tip that the cheapest plan is now from EON at an average of £894 per year but that this is expected to disappear very soon.

The company develops urban regeneration projects in south-east England. It buys brownfield/ex-MoD sites with the objective of adding value by securing planning permission and then selling the assets on to developers and residential home builders.

According to advisory website www.unbiased.co.uk, some 92 per cent of people in the UK know where they want their money to go when they die. Only problem is, more than 30 million people in the UK do not have a will.

Credit cards can be useful if used sensibly, paying off balances to avoid eye-popping interest rates etc. But what you don't want to do is to apply for a card from a provider who cherry picks and get a rejection.